A grassroots organization known as Citizens for Judicial Integrity is campaigning against the retention of four Madison County judges. According to the CFJI website, the judges were elected with "huge contributions from judges and asbestos law firms" and are "responsible for a lawsuit explosion.”

This fall, judges are running in contestable elections in 32 states and standing in yes/no retention elections in 17 states. Judicial elections are typically low-information contests, where voters may cast their ballots based on party affiliation, name recognition, or ballot position rather than on qualifications and experience. But in a handful of states, voters will have the benefit of broad-based and objective evaluations of incumbent judges’ performance on the bench and, in one state, of the judicial potential of their challengers.

Questions were raised as to whether an email from a state employee advocating the retention of the appellate judges on the November ballot violated an anti-electioneering ethics rule. The email was sent by the John Miley, general counsel to the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission, whose wife is standing for retention to the supreme court.

A recent poll shows that 49 percent of voters plan to vote to retain Justice David Wiggins in November, while 41 percent will vote to remove him. In 2009, Wiggins joined a unanimous supreme court decision recognizing a right to same-sex marriage under the state constitution.